La Jolla Home Sellers Profit from Strong Spring Market

With gorgeous ocean views and a captivating charm, La Jolla is always a coveted spot for homeowners. With home prices rising, cash sales increasing and overall sales speeding along, industry analysts predict that the spring of 2014 is a profitable time to sell your La Jolla home.

Photo by Alejandro Mallea

High-End Home Sales Increase

With an abundance of million-dollar homes, La Jolla’s residential market expectations are a cut above the regular housing market. La Jolla home buyers are extremely discerning, looking for high-end features, spectacular views, luxurious extras and robust investment values. John Walsh, president of national real estate analysis firm DataQuick, notes, “The luxury home market is unique, always has been. It responds to its own set of economic factors.”

Many home buyers are increasingly finding those investment values in California and La Jolla. Million-dollar home sales are at their highest point in the past six years. California’s million-dollar homes sales surged 45 percent in 2013, and analysts expect that trend to continue throughout the spring of 2014. With luxury home sales flourishing, spring 2014 is a seller’s market for La Jolla homeowners.

Home Prices Climb

Recent La Jolla home sales support industry expectations. La Jolla’s median home prices topped $1.7 million during the first two months of 2014, an eight percent jump over the same period in 2013. While there was a slight two percent dip in sales price between January and February this year, the year-to-date figures more accurately reflect the overall trend of increasing coastal home prices.

These positive 2014 figures continue the course established in 2013, when nearly 400 La Jolla homes sold for more than $1 million. The most expensive La Jolla residence sold in 2013 was priced at $18.5 million, the fourth most lucrative housing sale in all of California that year.

Price-Per-Square-Foot Escalates

As a home seller, you may be less concerned about overall price and more interested in earning the best profit for every inch of your home. Luckily, the median price-per-square-foot for La Jolla homes even outpaces overall sales. In February, DataQuick reported that La Jolla home buyers paid $715 per square foot, an increase of 13.1 percent over February 2013.

Efficient Sales

La Jolla homeowners are selling their homes within 74 days of their market debuts, a slight increase over 2013’s 72 days. This translates to considerably quicker sales than homes in other local million-dollar markets. Similarly priced homes in Rancho Santa Fe, Del Mar and Coronado linger on the market much longer at an average of 126, 96 and 90 days.

This fairly rapid sales pace coupled with La Jolla’s rising home prices and strong luxury market to make spring 2014 an excellent and lucrative time to list your La Jolla home. If you are still on the fence about selling your home, consider downloading our Definitive Guide to Selling Your Home in order to fill in any informative blanks. Please don’t hesitate to contact us for any of your questions!